HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Cambricon Technologies (Cambricon; ) is a partially
state-owned State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...
publicly listed A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (li ...
Chinese technology company headquartered in
Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
. The company builds core processor chips and general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs) for use in the field of
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
(AI). It has been compared to
Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...
due to their similar focus.


History

Brothers Chen Yunji and Chen Tianshi entered the
University of Science and Technology of China The University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) is a public university in Hefei, China. It is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and co-funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Education of the People' ...
at an early age and received their
doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...
degrees in
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
by the time they were 24. They then worked for the
Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...
(CAS) with a focus on computing technology. The two were part of the Cambricon project which is named after the Cambrian explosion. The project formed in 2008 aimed to develop a brain-inspired processor chip specialized for
deep learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...
. CAS set aside 10 million yuan to fund the project. In March 2016, the Cambricon project was spun out as a business. The brothers co-founded the company Cambricon which was set up to bring chips from the Cambricon project to the commercial market. In June 2018, Cambricon was valued at US$2.5 billion making it one of China's most valuable AI
startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...
. Early investors included
Alibaba Group Alibaba Group Holding Limited, branded as Alibaba (), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in E-commerce in China, e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzho ...
,
Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, trading as Lenovo ( , zh, c=联想, p=Liánxiǎng), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, servers, conv ...
and iFlytek. By then it had produced AI chips to power smartphones and servers for large companies such as
Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...
although the contact was terminated that year when Huawei decided to use its own AI chips from its subsidiary,
HiSilicon HiSilicon ( zh, c=海思, p=Hǎisī) is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province and wholly owned by Huawei. HiSilicon purchases licenses for CPU designs from ARM Holdings, including the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore ...
which greatly affected Cambricon's revenue. On 20 July 2020, Cambricon held its
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...
(IPO) becoming a listed company on the
Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market The Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market, officially known as the Shanghai Stock Exchange Science and Technology Innovation Board, is a Chinese science and technology focused equities market established on July 22, 2019. STAR has been touted as ...
. There were concerns about Cambricon 's prospects due to increasing competition in the field of AI chips as well as US sanctions. Despite this, the company had a strong debut with its share price rising 230% above its listing price valuing the company at US$12 billion. Overall the IPO raised $369 million. On 15 December 2022, Cambricon was added to the US
Bureau of Industry and Security The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that deals with issues involving national security and high technology. A principal goal for the bureau is helping stop the proliferation of weap ...
Entity List The Entity List is a trade restriction list published by the United States Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), consisting of certain foreign persons, entities, or governments. It is published as Supplement 4 of Part ...
. In July 2023, Cambricon laid off half its workers at its
autonomous car A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car (AC), driverless car, robotic car or robo-car, is a car that is capable of operating with reduced or no User input, human input. They are sometimes called robotaxi, robotaxis, though this te ...
chip unit SingGo due to cost cutting measures. In September 2023, it was reported that early investors including SDIC Venture Capital Management,
China Merchants Bank China Merchants Bank (CMB) () is a Chinese bank headquartered in Futian District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. Founded in 1987, it is the first share-holding commercial bank wholly owned by corporate legal entities in China. CMB listed on the Sha ...
and Alibaba Group had sold all their shares in Cambricon. At this point Cambricon's share price was only half of its IPO price as the company struggled to turn a profit. Cambricon attributed the loses to increased investment in
research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...
to upgrade its products so they can remain competitive. In February 2024, Cambricon reported an annual net loss for 2023 making it the seventh consecutive year of losses for the company although its losses were less than 2022. Due to US sanctions, the company struggled with access to advanced manufacturing processes making its products less competitive. The chips having inferior performance made it difficult to achieve widespread adoption. Cambricon had to heavily rely on government-affiliated clients for its revenue which was stable but not sufficient for sustained significant revenue growth. In September 2024, Cambricon shares soared hitting the 20% daily limit after it was reported that the
Chinese government The government of the People's Republic of China is based on a system of people's congress within the parameters of a Unitary state, unitary communist state, in which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacts its policies through people's ...
was stepping up pressure on domestic companies to ditch Nvidia processors for local alternatives. During 2024, Cambricon shares rose 383% making it China's top stock in 2024. In January 2025, it was reported that Cambricon achieved its first-ever quarterly profit in late 2024.


See also

*
Jingjia Micro Jingjia Microelectronics (Jingjia; ) is a publicly listed Chinese electronics company. It is China's largest graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing ...
*
Semiconductor industry in China The Chinese semiconductor industry, including integrated circuit design and manufacturing, forms a major part of mainland China's information technology industry. China's semiconductor industry consists of a wide variety of companies, from integ ...


References


External links

* {{Electronics industry in China 2016 establishments in China 2020 initial public offerings Companies based in Beijing Companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Electronics companies established in 2016 Government-owned companies of China Microprocessors made in China Semiconductor companies of China 2016 in Beijing